WWF-Brazil has released a guide which provides an overview of the updated Forest Code in Brazil. The report gives recommendations for decision makers in supply chain companies, financial institutions and governments on how to take action to implement and ensure compliance to the Forest Code. Information on the Forest Code law and recommendations to ensure effective implementation are also outlined.

Environmentalists have called Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s commitments on reducing deforestation and supporting renewable energy ‘weak’ and representing little more than maintaining the status quo. Greenpeace Brazil say the target of restoring 12 million hectares of forest represents only half of the reforestation requirements under Brazil’s Forest Code and are just another commitment to comply with existing laws, not a bold new initiative.
Brazil has, however, worked to reduce greenhouse gas emissions more than any large country over the past decade, with emissions from all sectors having fallen by around 40% since 2005, with an 85% cut in carbon dioxide from deforestation.

A recently published paper in the journal Science assesses how Brazil managed to reduce its deforestation rates by 70% over the course of a decade and points to a three-stage process in which bans, better governance in frontier areas and consumer pressure on companies worked, if fitfully and only after several false starts. While the Brazilian Forest Code from the mid-1990s mandated that 80% of farm land had to be set aside as a forest reserve, deforestation rates reached their highest as the code was not enforced. However, from 2005 Brazil’s President Lula da Silva made halting deforestation a priority which led to better cooperation between enforcement agencies and public prosecutors. At the same time, improvements in the efficiency of cattle breeding, a fall in export earnings from soybeans and an NGO campaign to boycott Brazilian soybeans caused deforestation to plummet. Then in 2009, once soybean expansion resumed, the government focused its efforts on the counties with the worst deforestation rates and banned them from getting cheap credit until the rates fell. Other reinforcing factors included a proper land registry, a cattle boycott, an amnesty for illegal clearances before 2008 and money from a special $1 billion Amazon Fund financed by foreign aid.

Brazilian municipalities are turning to drones as they prepare to implement the new Forest Code which requires farmers in the Amazon to preserve up to 80 per cent of the forest on their land. The country’s biggest municipality in the Amazonian state of Pará has already purchased a drone at a cost of more than R$100,000 (over £25,000). The drones can fly for five hours at a time and photograph in detail 20,000-30,000 hectares per flight. The company manufacturing the drones said that demand has experienced a sharp increase in the past year, much of this coming from hydropower companies looking to monitor their vast properties in the Amazon against invasions by illegal settlers, deforestation and other problems.

With deforestation up by 90% on 2012’s rate of loss, Brazil has bolstered the number of environmental inspectors in the forest to curb illegal clearing. Landowners clearing forests are struggling to escape detection by the government’s near-real-time satellite forest monitoring system, DETER, but are starting to clear smaller forest areas that the system cannot see at its 25-hectare resolution. A higher resolution system that would detect this clearing, known as PRODES, is only used annually. Environmentalists believe the more relaxed revisions to the Forest Code, implemented in 2012, accounted for this rise in clearing.

The Brazilian government released data that confirmed an increase in Amazon forest loss, with the majority of clearing taking place in Mato Grosso for agriculture. Reasons for the increase are thought to derive from weakening of the country's Forest Code, which limits clearing on private forest land, and agricultural exports have also become more commercially attractive for farmers.

Brazil’s President has signed the new Forest Code into law. The Code dictates how much of their forest farmers and companies must leave intact. However, critics counter that it reduces the actual amount of forest preserved by extending the scope to river margins and steep hillsides. To comply with the Code some landowners who have previously cleared land in excess of the new limits will have to reforest an area of land totalling the size of Italy. Whether enforcement will be effective and successful is open to question. The main tool to support compliance will be a registry to which landowners must detail their compliance with the Code to remain eligible for state credit and support. The farm lobby says it may challenge the final version of the Code in court.

A study published in Science modelling species extinction in the Brazilian Amazon has concluded that the extinction of many species in certain regions is inevitable. The study models several future scenarios ranging from “business as usual” to a “strong reduction” and found that even in the best case scenario deforestation will lead to the extinction of around 38 species locally. Future threats to the Amazon come from planned hydroelectric power plants and the risks of deforestation which might follow the changes to Brazil’s Forest Code.

WWF highlighting their concerns around Brazil’s Forest Code Bill. These include pardoning of previous deforestation around springs, headwaters and wetlands; reduced protection riverbank forest; and allowing restoration of areas to be done through plantations of eucalyptus and other non-native species. WWF also points out that President Rousseff’s amendments won’t be approved until after the Rio 20+ Summit.

Environmental groups have welcomed President Rousseff’s veto of key articles of the legislation, but warned that it remains to be seen how effective enforcement of the new law will be. The veto was on key articles which would have reduced requirements upon landowners to maintain forest cover, lifted restrictions on forest clearance near rivers and given an amnesty to landowners who had carried out deforestation prior to 2008 – an article which the Union of Concerned Scientists warned would have set a dangerous precedent encouraging landowners to continue with forest clearance on the assumption that further amnesties would follow in the years to come.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has vetoed some key parts of the proposed Forest Code. It will now be sent back to Congress for another vote before it comes into force. Prior to the President’s decision, the NGO Avaaz handed the government a petition with nearly two million signatures demanding a total veto.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has vetoed some key parts of the proposed Forest Code. It will now be sent back to Congress for another vote before it comes into force. Prior to the President’s decision, the NGO Avaaz handed the government a petition with nearly two million signatures demanding a total veto.

The latest satellite-based data on deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon shows a year-on-year decrease with 830 sq km of clearance detected since August 2011 compared to 1,268 sq km the previous year. The annual amount of deforestation has fallen by nearly eighty per cent since 2004 due to various measures including increased law enforcement, financial incentives, better monitoring and the rising price of agricultural exports. Proposed changes to the Forest Code could halt or reverse this progress.

Pressure is building on President Dilma Rousseff to veto The Forest Code ahead of the deadline on 25th May. The Forest Code reduces the obligation on landowners to protect Amazonian forest cover down from 80 to 50 per cent, leading to the potential loss of 190 million acres of forest according to the Brazilian Government’s Institute for Applied Economic Research. It is being seen as a battle between the increasingly powerful ‘ruralistas’, legislators representing agricultural interests, and a range of other stakeholders including environmental NGOs, leading national scientific groups, Brazilian celebrities and even many large businesses such as Tetra Pak Brasil.

Major amendments to Brazil’s Forest Code are on the brink of passing into law. The changes allow reserve areas in the Amazon to be reduced from 80 to 50% and reduce the restriction on forest clearance near rivers. Agriculturalists have welcomed the amendments.

In response to the impending passing into law of Brazil’s Forest Code (see previous story) Greenpeace is campaigning for a veto against the legislation, claiming that it could lead to deforestation of 22 million hectares of rainforest (an area nearly equivalent to the size of the UK). Also, in response to the legislation, 130,000 Brazilian citizens backed by a number of Brazilian celebrities have signed a citizen’s initiative launched by Greenpeace Brazil for a new Zero Deforestation law to protect the rainforest.